>...Compare ~10 megatonnes of methane leaks worldwide It isn't clear we fully understand the extent of methane leaks in the US and probably have less info on m

>...Compare ~10 megatonnes of methane leaks worldwide It isn't clear we fully understand the extent of methane leaks in the US and probably have less info on many other countries. This is illustrated in the Aliso Canyon leak: >..The authors believe there are important lessons to be learned from the leak - particularly the need to monitor oil and gas facilities more carefully. They say that there has been little co-ordinated oversight of the biggest oil and gas leaks in recent years. They point to Aliso Canyon, the BP spill and the Total Elgin rig blowout in the North Sea as examples where luck more than intent ensured the impacts on the environment were monitored. In the case of Aliso Canyon, the surveying aircraft was working on another project searching for pipeline problems, when the scientists were asked to overfly the leaking well. "The state's response to Aliso Canyon was teed off by the first measurement we took, at that point no-one had any clue that this was 50,000kg per hour of gas," said Dr Conley. This report discusses the overall level of uncertainty in this area: >...However, given limited current evidence, it is likely that leakage at individual natural gas well sites is high enough, when combined with leakage from downstream operations, to make the total leakage exceed the 3.2% threshold beyond which gas becomes worse for the climate than coal for at least some period of time. https://www.pnas.org/content/109/17/6435 https://www.pnas.org/content/109/17/6435 Using coal for fuel is almost a crime against humanity considering the health costs, so switching to natural gas is harm reduction. The amount of reduction in GHG production though is more uncertain due to lack of investments in monitoring and reducing methane leakages.